Star Wars 7 set photos mark filming day 1

It’s time at last to begin filming Star Wars Episode VII. The first photos from the set of the film has been shared by the official Star Wars Twitter, showing signs that this film has lifted off officially. First you'll see the outside of one filming studio, then a slate snapped right at the start of filming!

This single slate can give us some insight on what’s going on with the film. Cinematographer Daniel Mindel has done the dirty work with describing all the technical bits we’d not normally be able to decipher quite so quickly in a series of tweets via @JosephKahn

Kahn suggests that "you don’t usually write all that camera info on a slate," for beginners, suggesting that while generally "AI40" might mean A roll 40, here it could mean 40mm, Primo 40mm, meaning this is "definitely a visual effects shot."

We can expect a load of highest-end shots to be filmed first - not only so that these shots can be used in the earliest teasers for the film, but so the filmmakers can get their process in order. Once the most difficult shot is captured and processed, everything else is easy.

This scene is probably being filmed in anamorphic format with a relatively high stop (5.6) for a an ND 6 filter. This scene is also almost certainly being filmed outdoors in bright, natural light - and you can see a bit of sand on the board below the board, as well. Filming might have started in Tunisia, after all.